CURIOUS SUPERSTITION.  CEREMONIES.

I was however wholly unprepared for the scene that was about to take place.  A sort of procession came up, headed by two women down whose cheeks tears were streaming.  The eldest of these came up to me and, looking for a moment at me, said, “Gwa, gwa, bundo bal,” “Yes, yes, in truth it is him;” and then, throwing her arms round me, cried bitterly, her head resting on my breast; and, although I was totally ignorant of what their meaning was, from mere motives of compassion I offered no resistance to her caresses, however disagreeable they might be, for she was old, ugly, and filthily dirty; the other younger one knelt at my feet, also crying.

At last the old lady, emboldened by my submission, deliberately kissed me on each cheek, just in the manner a French woman would have done; she then cried a little more and, at length relieving me, assured me that I was the ghost of her son who had some time before been killed by a spear-wound in his breast.  The younger female was my sister; but she, whether from motives of delicacy or from any imagined backwardness on my part, did not think proper to kiss me.

My new mother expressed almost as much delight at my return to my family as my real mother would have done had I been unexpectedly restored to her.  As soon as she left me my brothers and father (the old man who had previously been so frightened) came up and embraced me after their manner, that is, they threw their arms round my waist, placed their right knee against my right knee, and their breast against my breast, holding me in this way for several minutes.  During the time that the ceremony lasted I, according to the native custom, preserved a grave and mournful expression of countenance.

This belief, that white people are the souls of departed blacks, is by no means an uncommon superstition amongst them; they themselves, never having an idea of quitting their own land, cannot imagine others doing it; and thus, when they see white people suddenly appear in their country, and settling themselves down in particular spots, they imagine that they must have formed an attachment for this land in some other state of existence; and hence conclude the settlers were at one period black men, and their own relations.  Likenesses either real or imagined complete the delusion; and from the manner of the old woman I have just alluded to, from her many tears, and from her warm caresses, I feel firmly convinced that she really believed I was her son, whose first thought upon his return to earth had been to re-visit his old mother, and bring her a present.  I will go still farther and say that, although I did not encourage this illusion, I had not the heart to try to undeceive the old creature and to dispel her dream of happiness.  Could I have remained long enough to have replaced this vain impression by a consoling faith I would gladly have done it; but I did not like to destroy this belief and leave her no other in the place of it.